By: Your Inner Child


It was just a summer day, the kind of summer day where a kid would just stay asleep until noon. Today that kid was me. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was outside that afternoon because the noise of my friends playing actually woke me up. That, and the snowball truck playing its infamous song.

Time to get up, and more importantly it’s time to gather that .65 cents. Any other day there seems to be too much change around the house, but with the snowball truck only a few houses down, it is nearly impossible it seems. But I found it by the time the truck was stopped across the street. The change it my hand on that hot summer day was making my hand sweat enough to make me feel the copper and silver in my hands. But that didn’t matter. In just a few steps out my door and down the porch I could already taste artificial strawberry as I stared at the truck.

Half of my fifth grade class seemed to be in line, but that didn’t matter either. Even waiting on the hot asphalt of the street in our bare feet didn’t bother us. I was just a kid, living one day at a time, seeing how many fun things I could squeeze into one sunrise and sunset at a time. So my best friends and I all ate our snowballs and then it was time to join the rest of our friends for our favorite game.

The game was called “Red Line”, some might call it Jail Break, Box Free or even Cops and Robbers but on St. Bridget Lane, it’s Red Line. The game never ended, we were all so fast, like a bunch of jackrabbits trying to catch each other. Frequently, I had to go inside for a break and scarf down my dinner in only a few minutes. You know the feeling, when you are busy doing something else that eating food seems like a nuisance.

Some time goes by, and now with some great chicken tenders and fries in my stomach I am ready to rejoin my friends. This time though, we are all on our bikes cruising toward our school, wind in our hair and shirts flapping in the wind. We know our neighborhood so well that we can be home by the time that first street light and the last one slowly flickers that dim yellow light on. That was the time that I had to be home.

We park our bikes, also known as throwing them down to the ground, sometimes getting dirt stuck in the hollow end of the handlebars. The same dirt that is just fun so pick out on the ride home. Now the game is “step ball”. Pretty self-explanatory, you take aim with a tennis ball and chuck it into a set of steps leading u to one of our houses and then run around the homemade dirt bases, which send up dust each time someone stepped on them. The best could make that fuzzy green ball hit the very edge of the steps and send it flying into the street.
It’s my turn now, after Ricky hit it soaring into the outfield only for it to hit a car and get an automatic out. On my first throw of that used, dirty ball….home run!
What a way to end the day, as that infamous last light starts to warm up and flicker. I’m heading home with a day of accomplishing nothing but having all sorts of fun. Take a shower, go to bed, wake up and repeat.